This old saying reminds us that winter can sure be a struggle at times. Its even harder to get out of bed on these chilly, dark mornings just knowing that everything outside is cold and frozen. The weather the past few weeks has been trying on everyone across the state. I have seen more pictures of calves in pickup trucks and bathroom floors than I have the last several winters combined. Here in Kentucky we just aren't used to this much snow or temperatures that are below zero.

I must say that we have been lucky at ESF the past couple of weeks. We did not have any major damage caused by the extreme cold, and more importantly we did not lose any livestock! We were fortunate that we did not have any calves born during this stretch of bad weather. We only had one calf that was born the weekend before all the snow fell, but he was born to one of our good mamma cows and she took care of the little fellow and he made it through last week just fine. Here is the new pair coming up to water.

The only problem we encountered during the cold weather was two automatic waters froze up. But we simply opened the barn up so the cows could come inside and drink out of some open waterers. The cows weathered out the storm in the bottom of a ravine in the cover of some trees. They were out of the wind and there was open, flowing water in the creek so they didn't have to venture very far from safety other than to eat a bite of hay.

Owen County ended up getting around 10 inches of snow, enough to shut the school system down for the past 8 days. Quinn and Wyatt have been home so Greg has had plenty of help looking after the cows in the bad weather. Below, Quinn was in charge of unwrapping the hay bales.

Despite the bad weather this year, our cattle have stayed in good condition. Here are a couple pictures of the heifers we are developing.

We also witnessed this interesting event. Two different does came out of the woods to lick the salt along the edge of the road. They didn't seem too worried that they were being watched and simply meandered back into the woods when they were finished.

I hope that you have survived the past two weeks with minimal damage and loss. It has been a tough time to be a farmer, but it will get warmer soon. This weekend the calendar will rollover to March 1st so remember, spring is just around the corner, and oh, how sweet it will be!

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Welcome

Hello, my name is Dan Miller and I work for the Kentucky Beef Network. KBN took over operation of the Eden Shale Farm in April of 2013. We are using the 961 acre farm as a demonstration and learning center for beef cattle producers. This blog serves as a place to document daily farm activity and host discussions about the demonstrations being implemented. I hope you find this information useful and that you come visit us at Eden Shale Farm.